Health Check-Ups & Prevention

Get a Screening for Your Health!

Hi there. My name is Syd Ehmke and I’m one of the nurse practitioners here at the Aspire Indiana Health Center. I wanted to talk with you briefly today about screening tests. Screening tests are a great prevention measure. If we pick up on something today – you may have it – but we can prevent a lot of problems from occurring later on in the future from the disease. So the first screening that I want to talk about is HIV testing. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that everyone over the age of 13 be tested. The US Preventative Task Force recommends the age of 15. As you can see, we think it’s very important for you to get tested for HIV. It’s so important that Indiana now mandates that all pregnant females get tested for the HIV. Therefore, if it is present, the baby can be treated. There can be medicines given to the mother to possibly prevent that transmission on to the baby. The second screening that we do now is Hepatitis C. We really encourage this to be done. Especially if you were born between 1945 and 1965. Regardless if you have high-risk symptoms or not, you should request a Hepatitis C test. For Hepatitis C testing, only 15% of the people who have Hepatitis C, know that they have it. That means that there’s 85% of the people who don’t know that they have Hepatitis C. And the last screening test that I want to mention is one for diabetes. Diabetes can occur at any age, any race, any gender. You are at increased risk for Type 2 Diabetes or Adult Onset Diabetes if you have a family history – parent, grandparent – of diabetes. It’s a simple blood test that can be done. We can even prick your finger for the blood test. But this is a very worth-while test to make sure that your blood sugar is not trending upward. So, I’ve shared with you three screening tests today. We hope that we can provide those for you at the Aspire Indiana Health Center and we look forward to seeing you soon. To good health. Thank you.